


Mere Monstrosity

by IceEckos12



Series: jon and gerry versus the world [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bullying, Emotional neglect, Internalized Acephobia, M/M, Sex-Repulsed Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Spiders, jon and gerry were childhood friends, jonathan's gran is also not a great parent, mary keay is a bad parent, no mopeds were harmed in the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23474035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceEckos12/pseuds/IceEckos12
Summary: Jon met Gerry, and it seemed like such an inconsequential thing, an encounter that was supposed to come to nothing. But then Jon bullied Gerry into letting him ride on his moped, and it all snowballed from there.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Jonathan Sims
Series: jon and gerry versus the world [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688725
Comments: 102
Kudos: 541
Collections: Repulsed/Averse Ace Jon Archivist





	Mere Monstrosity

**Author's Note:**

> i got tired of looking at this and have come to the conclusion that i'll just write another 10k sometime later lmao
> 
> please heed the tags.
> 
> also, i wasnt sure whether or not to tag this, but there is some blink-and-you-miss-it homophobic language

_Age: 13_

Five years had passed since Jon watched a perfectly normal house eat a teenager.

The internet had been surprisingly unhelpful when it came to information about the library on the bookplate, the one which supposedly belonged to that of Jurgen Leitner. He’d had the most success on private forums, where people had described odd encounters with books that all bore the same plate as the one on his _._ Most refused to elaborate on their stories, though. Even when he had emailed people directly, they seemed strangely unwilling to speak with him.

As far as Jon could tell, if he was going to figure anything else out, he was going to have to get his hands on another one. He knew that it was potentially dangerous, but the greatest discoveries were made by scholars who took _risks._

At least, that was what Indiana Jones had taught him. Good scientists _got out of the library,_ so to speak. And he was thirteen now, which meant that his gran paid less and less attention to his comings and goings, which meant _more freedom._ He could use his pocket money to ride public transit wherever he wanted _,_ and he wouldn’t get in trouble unless he missed his nine o’clock curfew.

So for the last two months, Jon had been going to every second hand bookshop in the area, and every second hand bookshop he could reach by train or bus, and asking if they didn’t have a book from the library of Jurgen Leitner? Most people didn’t know who he was talking about, but a few had thrown him out of their shops outright, or tried to warn him off it.

There was a reason that people at school call him insufferable, though. If there was knowledge to be found, then Jon would find it.

It was a perfectly pleasant day when it happened.

“Thanks,” Jon said to the bus driver, who tipped her hat at him as he walked by. Then he was standing in the middle of the sidewalk of an unfamiliar town, clutching the strap of his bookbag. He took the map out and squinted around, finding the nearby street names and matching them to the paper in front of him.

 _There,_ Jon thought, sighting the sign of the bookshop down the street. He folded up his map again, and headed over.

Jon was two steps through the door of a bookshop one town over when someone reached out and wrapped their hand around his arm. He instinctively jerked forward, panic crawling through his brain, but the grip remained firm.

“Don’t try to run,” a voice growled. “I heard you’ve been asking about Leitners.”

Jon turned to look at his captor, and found his plea of _don’t hurt me_ dying on the tip of his tongue.

The person—and that was a _teenager_ , probably barely older than he was—had one of the most hideous dye jobs that Jon had ever seen. It was pitch black, but he’d let the blond roots grow out quite a bit. And his ears were pierced in multiple different places, including the cartilage, and he was wearing a black leather jacket and black combat boots.

“You’re just a teenager,” Jon said stupidly.

The teenager puffed up, as though a few extra inches would make him look any less like what he was. “And _you’re_ just a kid.”

“I’m thirteen! I’m barely younger than you are!” Jon protested, tugging at the pale hand on his bicep. “And you can stop _manhandling_ me.”

The teenager’s eyes flickered from Jon to the empty store around them, to the street outside. It wasn’t very heavily trafficked, sure, but if Jon _really_ put up a fuss someone would notice.

“Fine,” the teen said, letting go.

“Thank you,” Jon muttered, fixing his jacket. And then he rounded on the teen. “Why are you following me?”

“I heard you’ve been asking about Leitners,” the teen repeated tersely.

“So…” Jon tilted his head, giving the teen a long, thorough once-over. “You _know_ about Leitners?”

“Yes. Do you have one?”

Jon perked up as a thought suddenly occurred to him. He’d read the books; detectives got information through bargaining. It didn’t seem so difficult. “I’m not saying _anything_ until you tell _me_ what I want to know.”

The teen stared down at Jon. Jon stared back up at the teen, suddenly hyper aware of how short and skinny he was in comparison. That grip had been really, _really_ strong.

“Fine,” the teen said.

“Fine,” Jon snapped back.

They kept staring at each other, although now there was a note of uncertainty to the silence.

“So…” Jon began.

“There’re chairs in the back,” the teen said, nodding toward a secluded corner of the bookshop. “We can talk there without being overheard.”

“Less witnesses for when you decide to murder me?” The words were out before Jon could fully think them through. He bit his lip and flushed a bright red.

The teen chuckled at that, a low, throaty rumble, and shook his head. “No, I’m not planning on murdering you. Not in broad daylight, anyway.” He gave Jon a wry, toothy grin, like they were sharing a private joke. “Too many witnesses.”

“Right,” Jon muttered, ignoring the startled flutter of warmth that grin elicited.

When they were seated, the teen opened his mouth to speak. Jon got there first, and shoved his hand in the teen’s face.

“Jonathon Sims,” he said expectantly, ignoring the way the teen went cross-eyed and leaned back to avoid getting hit in the face. “I go by Jon.”

“Gerard Keay,” the newly dubbed Gerard said, and then tentatively shook Jon’s hand, as though he was worried it would grow fangs and bite him.

“Right. Now. Tell me what you know about Leitners.”

Gerard gave Jon a slow once-over, as though he was debating whether or not he should push for Jon to go first. After a moment he obviously came to the same conclusion that Jon had—that Gerard was bigger, and if Jon tried to run without fulfilling his half of the deal, it would be easy enough to stop him.

Jon had no such guarantee.

Gerard let out a sigh and leaned back in his seat, folding his arms over his chest as he recited, almost as though he was reading from a book, “Jurgen Leitner was a Norwegian who collected rare books, specifically books that had an appetite for death and disaster. People who read them, who pick them up, often find themselves running afoul of one or the other.”

“How do you mean, death and disaster?” Jon asked, trying to slot this new information in with what he already knew.

“Death,” Gerard said slowly, as though he was speaking to an especially slow child. “And disaster.”

Jon recalled _A Guest for Mr. Spider,_ and decided that perhaps it was best if he didn’t know. “And did he make the books special, or did he find them _because_ they were special?”

“The latter,” Gerard shook his head. “Leitner thought that he could control them. He was wrong, though.”

“I see. What happened?”

“What do you think?” Gerard asked wryly, leaning back in his seat and putting his feet up on the small coffee table in front of him. Jon wrinkled his nose at the layer of dirt caked on the soles, and resisted the urge to push them off the table. “The books got him.”

“And now these books are just...floating around?”

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s horrifying.”

“Very,” Gerard said, his face twisting into a sneer. “My turn. Why are you looking for a Leitner? Is it because you have one?”

Jon fell quiet, his fingers tugging and twisting in the cuff of his sweater, staring at his lap.

“I, um,” he began, and then the words caught on his tongue. He struggled for a moment—he’d never had to put his experience into words before. He hadn’t even told his gran.

Finally he decided, “I found a Leitner.”

That _definitely_ caught Gerard’s attention. His eyes lit up and he leaned forward, putting his feet back onto the floor, draping his forearms over his knees.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Jon told him tiredly. “A giant spider ate the book, I think. And the person who carried it.”

“Oh,” Gerard said, visibly disappointed. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “Waste of time, then.”

“Not for me,” Jon said immediately. “You’re hunting down Leitners, right? To do, what? Destroy them?”

“Hardly,” Gerard said, waving a dismissive hand. “My mum researches them. It’s kind of a...family thing, I guess?”

“But you keep Leitners from hurting people, don’t you?” Jon pressed.

Gerard looked at him then, and for a split second, his grey eyes were far, _far_ too old for his young face.

“I’m not that altruistic,” he said. There was no bite to it.

“But you _do,”_ Jon insisted. “Finding these books, getting them into the hands of someone who can understand them—that’s protecting people.”

Gerard sighed and looked away. “If you want to see it like that.”

Jon took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “I want to help.”

“What?” Gerard fixed Jon with an incredulous, horrified glare. “Did you _not_ hear the whole death and disaster thing?”

“I could do it myself,” Jon responded mildly. “It’s simple, isn’t it? Follow death and disaster to its source, then...well, I assume that burning it would work. Unless it needs something a little more sophisticated. What if I dumped it into the ocean?”

“Shut _up,”_ Gerard said, then swore emphatically under his breath. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“No,” Jon agreed immediately.

Gerard paused and frowned at Jon, like he was looking at a particularly perplexing puzzle.

“It’s a lot of travel,” he said at length. “Leitners are...everywhere.”

“Well, how do you get around?” Jon asked.

There was a pause.

“I have a moped,” Gerard admitted grudgingly.

“A _moped?”_ Jon gaped. “You’re not—are you _sixteen?”_

“Fifteen,” Gerard corrected. “Which is two years older than you.”

“You’ve been telling me how dangerous it is for a kid to get involved, but you’re barely older than I am!” Jon snapped, aghast. “And you’ve been riding a moped around _illegally!”_

Gerard flushed, and his skin was so thin and pale that it turned his whole face red. “I’m going to get a motorcycle as soon as I’m old enough!”

“Oh, like that makes it any _better.”_

They were quiet for a second.

Then Jon took a deep breath. “Can you fit a second person on your moped?”

Gerard gaped. “You’re not seriously suggesting—”

“I absolutely am,” Jon said, struggling desperately to maintain a dignified expression.

There was a brief, mortifying moment where Jon thought that Gerard was going to refuse and storm out of the shop, and he’d be back to square one. Well, not _exactly_ square one. He’d have just enough information to drive him mad if he didn’t do something with it.

But then Gerard did something unexpected.

He didn’t do anything so dramatic as throw back his head and start laughing, but he _did_ chuckle a little. It was low and slightly raspy, and over almost as soon as it began, but Gerard looked more surprised by the sound than Jon did.

“You’re alright, Jon,” Gerard said, and he sounded like he genuinely meant it. “Sure, why not? Let’s find Leitners.”

“Oh, uh,” Jon was a bit taken aback by the fondness in Gerard’s voice. “Thanks, Gerard.”

“Gerry.”

Jon frowned. “Sorry?”

Gerry favored Jon with a small, wry smile. “You can call me Gerry.”

* * *

Jon’s persistent, insatiable desire to know things had gotten him in trouble more than once over the course of his life.

He could never bring himself to get really, truly angry at the other high school kids for the same reason he bit his lip and ducked his head instead of getting frustrated whenever his grandmother snapped at him to stop asking so many _questions._ Because he’d always been more observant than anyone had ever given him credit for, and so he had learned to recognize exasperation or disinterest on a face once attentive and curious.

He’d never quite been able to pinpoint when curiosity bled into boredom, though. He just kept talking and talking and talking, only to look up and realize that at some point, his conversation partner has just...checked out. He didn’t know how to control it, and if he could stop himself, then he would.

So most of the time, he felt a sort of quiet, aching wariness toward his grasping need to know everything the world had to offer. _Yes,_ he wanted to tell the other students, who pointed and laughed at him when he got worked up over factual inaccuracies, who got annoyed when he corrected them. _Yes,_ he wanted to tell his gran, who had always been happier when he was quiet. _I know. Trust me, I know._

But the first time he wondered if maybe it could be good, could be _used_ for good, was when it helped him to meet Gerry.

* * *

The first couple of times they went to fetch a book for Gerry’s mother, Jon felt horrendously awkward. Gerry had surly and sulky the whole time. Not only that, but the acquisition of the book itself was a little anticlimactic, especially considering how dramatic _A Guest for Mr. Spider_ had been. Quite frankly the most exciting part was the fact that Gerry had forced Jon to hang onto his shoulders as they were riding his little black moped (“used to be red,” Gerry explained with a scowl, even though Jon did not ask) the whole ride over.

The turning point was three months after they first met.

Jon stared at his locker, hoping that this was the moment that he finally gained the ability to see through solid objects.

It might be that there was nothing in the locker, and that he was worrying over nothing. But Nathan and Henry had given him twin looks of nasty satisfaction as he’d passed them in the hall, which meant that it was very likely that there was an awful surprise waiting for him. Or maybe they had just done that to psych him out, but he didn’t think that they had enough brain power between the two of them for something like that.

Maybe they would surprise him. Stranger things had happened.

Jon let out a sigh, reached out, and pulled the locker open.

At first he couldn’t place anything wrong. His books and papers were stacked as neatly as they ever were, pencils and markers pushed against one wall. He shuffled his things around a little, frowning, searching for any discrepancies. It was only after he knocked the frame with his elbow that the piece of paper fell from inside of the locker door to the ground.

Jon let out a sigh before leaning over and picking the paper off of the floor. He crumpled it up, not bothering to read what had been scribbled all over it—probably some variation of poof, or maybe a crack at his size or his stature. Nathan and Henry weren’t the most creative. This little attempt to belittle him was a little pathetic, actually.

He turned around, and—

Suddenly, there was a cascade of something cool and wet running over his hair and down his back. Jon let out a shocked noise and tried to cover his face, but it was too late—sticky liquid dribbled down the sides of his face, soaking into the fabric of his uniform.

He stood there for a second, gasping for air, the paper full of insults still clutched in his hand. He could feel the blood rushing to his face, mortification and breathless indignation churning in his gut like bile. The liquid still clinging to his skin smelled of something sharp and artificial, and its cloying scent filled its nose. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the hallway on him, still frozen, still dripping onto the floor.

Then there was a snicker, and Nathan’s voice said, “Good one, Henry. Finally got the little know-it-all to shut up.”

Jon whipped around, scrubbing at his face furiously. He opened his mouth to say something, _anything,_ to scream at them—

But nothing came out. He just stood there, his jaw working uselessly, his whole being burning with shame.

“Look at that!” Henry crowed, stepping in closer to Jon, towering over him. “I think we broke the little freak.”

Jon’s eyes darted around, looking for a friendly face—but there was no one. Of _course_ there was no one.

So he did the first thing that occurred to him. He turned around and pushed through the crowd, lowering his head so he could hide his bangs behind his eyes. If nothing else, he would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry.

He ran from the crowd, through the halls, past the library—he usually hid in the library when it got to be too much, but he couldn’t stay here, not today—and out of the front door of the building. He wasn’t particularly athletic, whenever he exercised he had to use an inhaler, but that didn’t stop him from running as fast as his skinny legs could carry him.

Jon only stopped when his traitorous lungs gave out, every breath painful and raw in his throat. He staggered over to a nearby bench, heaving and gasping for air, and sat, pushing his bangs away from his face over and over again.

He could still smell that artificial citrus scent—probably juice, he decided— but there was the taste of salt on his lips too. _Embarrassing,_ Jon thought, scrubbing at the tears, at the stains of the juice on his cheeks. _I just hope they don’t call gran. She’d kill me for skipping school._

Jon let out a despairing sigh when he realized that she’d be furious with him anyway for getting juice on his school uniform. _Shit._

Jon wasn’t sure how long he sat there, combing his bangs, trying to gather his composure enough for him to get up and go back. He needed to...to run his uniform under the sink before the stain set anymore. He needed to go back to class and pretend that nothing was wrong. He needed to not make trouble for his gran, who he caused so much trouble for _already._ Plus, he was meeting Gerry today after school to check out a place that was supposedly haunted.

Jon took a deep breath and carefully peeled himself from the park bench, wincing as his uniform rubbed against his sticky skin. The juice had long since dried, but it had left an uncomfortable residue behind. He trudged back, ignoring the sun, sitting high and lonely in the cloudless blue sky.

To Jon’s horror, though, classes had already been let out. He knew this because he could see students streaming out of the front gates, could hear a low murmur of laughter and chatter.

 _Oh no,_ Jon thought, frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, suddenly feeling very small.

There was a tall, dark figure leaning against the rock wall, hands shoved deep in their pockets. The other students were giving the person a wide berth, shooting curious, uncomfortable glances over their shoulders and whispering behind their hands as they passed. None were actually brave enough to approach the figure.

 _Why’s Gerry come here_ now? Jon bemoaned, wanting to bury his face into his hands. _Why today of all days?_

“Hey, look!” someone shouted, and all the air in Jon’s chest suddenly felt as though it’d been punched out of him. “It’s Jonny!”

 _Shit,_ Jon thought as Gerry’s head jerked up. They met eyes for a split second, and then Jon looked down and away.

“That’s a good look on you, Jonny!” Henry shouted from his small knot of friends. Laughter rippled through them, ugly and mean. “Don’t you agree, boys?”

Blood rushed into Jon’s face, and he wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground. _Why did it have to be today,_ he thought tiredly, trying to imagine what he looked like to an outsider. _Small boy, red eyes, hair matted with juice, orange stain in his shirt._ Gerry would lose all respect for him after this.

It took Jon a second to realize that the jeers and the laughter had died down—

And then there was a warm presence at his side. Jon’s eyes flew open, and he slowly looked up, not quite processing what he was seeing. Because those were black combat boots, yes, and that was a black leather jacket, yes, and those were _Gerard Keay’s_ dark eyes glaring out from under a stormcloud of pale eyebrows.

“Gerry?” Jon whispered, bewildered.

“Come on, Jon,” Gerry said sternly.

Jon came to the sudden realization that with the way Gerry’s body was angled, Jon was hidden from view to the rest of the students. He lowered his head and shuffled a little closer, pressing his lips together. There was a brief pause before Gerry lowered his arm over Jon’s shoulders, pressing him against his side.

Gerry was very warm, and very solid. Jon could smell the faint scent of cigarettes and incense, and something that reminded him vaguely of ink.

He closed his eyes, and let himself be led away.

After a few minutes of walking, they stopped. Jon looked up, frowning faintly, only to realize that he was staring at a black moped. Gerry’s arm left his shoulders, and the sudden chill that Jon felt had him wrapping his arms around his elbows.

“Come on,” Gerry said again, and Jon almost jumped out of his skin when he realized that Gerry had somehow gotten on the moped when he wasn’t paying attention. He hesitated, before swinging his leg over the seat and curling his fists in the fabric over Gerry’s shoulders.

To Jon’s bewilderment, they didn’t start moving immediately. Jon peered over Gerry’s shoulder, but he couldn’t get a good look at his face from this angle.

“You can, um,” Gerry began, a new, strange note in his voice. “Hold onto my waist. If you want.”

 _Awkward,_ Jon realized, shocked. He’d never thought that he would hear self-assured, confident Gerry uncertain, but that was exactly it.

“Okay,” Jon muttered, wrapping his arms around Gerry’s waist. After a moment, he carefully leaned forward until he could press the side of his face into Gerry’s back. He tried to remember the last time he’d been this close to another person, but couldn’t.

Jon choked on a breath, then another. Gerry’s chest deflated under his hands, a low sigh, and then the moped lurched into motion.

Gerry was kind enough not to mention the way Jon’s chest shook. The tears left no evidence at least, carried away by the wind.

_Age:14_

“My mum wants to meet you.”

Jon looked up from his notebook, frowning. Gerry was leaning against his moped, holding the opaque plastic bag that held their most recent acquisition in loose hands. He looked far less...present than he usually did, though, dark eyes staring blankly into the middle distance.

“Your mum?” Jon asked curiously. He didn’t know much about Gerry’s mother, only that she had a Leitner fascination which she had passed on to her only son. Jon thought that he respected her, though. Someone who was able to collect Leitners like that and not be utterly devoured by them had to be made of sterner stuff. “Why?”

“I mentioned that I’d been getting some help,” Gerry said, finally setting the plastic bag in the compartment under the seat. “She asked who it was, so I told her.”

“Oh,” Jon said, making one last note about _The Ragged Breath_ before snapping his notebook shut. “That’s flattering, I suppose.”

“No,” Gerry said, pushing away from the moped and shifting from one foot to the other. “No, not flattering.”

 _He’s agitated,_ Jon realized, frowning. He stuffed his notebook and pencil into his bookbag before approaching his friend. Gerry tended to be more honest if you crowded his space a little. “How do you mean?”

“She’s not—” Gerry broke off, shooting a stricken glance at Jon’s eyes. “She’s not like most mums.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had a mum,” Jon pointed out.

Gerry shook his head and pulled away, and that’s when Jon realized that something was _really bothering him._ “No, you don’t understand. She’s not like most _people._ She’s—other people only warrant her attention when they’re doing something for her.”

Jon frowned. “Including you?”

Gerry went perfectly, terribly still.

“Jon,” Gerry said in that voice that Jon knew meant, _too far._ The fact that he didn’t immediately deny it was as good as a confirmation, though.

Jon decided that he did not like Mary Keay very much.

“Sorry,” Jon said, though he knew that he did not sound very sorry at all.

It was enough to placate Gerry, though, who still looked so agitated that Jon was surprised he wasn’t pacing. “It’ll be fine if I’m there, though,” he muttered at length, almost to himself. “As long as you’re with me, it should be fine.”

“Okay,” Jon said, nodding. Because he trusted Gerry, and if Gerry said that it would be fine, then it would probably be fine. “When?”

Gerry darted a shy, surprised look at him, like he hadn’t expected for Jon to agree so readily. Jon took in a quiet breath. Gerry usually hid his gentler emotions behind a wall of grim apathy, as though showing any sort of vulnerability was intolerable. Jon had learned to treasure every glimpse he got of the sight behind it.

“Now,” Gerry said. “If you’ve the time.”

“Sure,” Jon said. “Let’s go.”

Gerry sat down on the front of the moped, and Jon looped his arms loosely around his friend’s waist. And then they were off, speeding down the street.

Almost a half hour later, Gerry was pulling up to the curb outside of a place called _Pinhole Books._ It was a tall, dark, forbidding building, which looked like it had grown right from the ground, rather than built.

“This is London, isn’t it?” Jon asked curiously, looking around. London was difficult to get to, as it was almost two hours away by public transit. Jon had only been to the outskirts a couple of times, when there had been Leitners.

“It is,” Gerry said, getting up and buckling his helmet to the handlebars. “Come on. Mum doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

 _A trait you two share,_ Jon thought dryly, before hurrying after his friend.

Gerry lead him up the stairs and into a set of rooms that was piled high with books and clutter that Jon didn’t even have a name for. There was nothing homey about the mess, either. In fact, the air was so strange and oppressive that Jon instinctively reached out and grabbed onto Gerry’s hem. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt as though if he let go he would get lost, become just another part of this odd collection.

Gerry didn’t push him away. In fact, he reached back and grabbed onto Jon’s hand with his own cold, clammy one, squeezing it comfortingly. Jon wasn’t sure who was comforting who, though.

“Mum?” Gerry called.

“Gerard,” came the response. Jon almost leapt out of his skin when a woman seemed to materialize from behind one of the stacks of books.

She was a tall woman, almost painfully thin, with very short, dirty blond hair. She had Gerry’s dark eyes—except they weren’t Gerry’s eyes, not really. Gerry eyes liked to pretend that they were blank slates, but all one had to do was look at his sleeve to see his heart. These eyes, on the other hand, were a true reflection of nothing.

She was the most terrifying person that Jon had ever met.

“This is who's been helping you, then?” Mary said, leaning in. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Jonathan Sims,” Jon whispered, leaning away from her and into Gerry’s side.

“You’ve had a run-in with the Web,” Mary hummed, tilting her head from one side to the other, like a bird of prey, before stepping back. He got the distinct impression that he’d just been found wanting. “ _Sims._ Not much to look at. Would you like some tea?”

Gerry squeezed Jon’s hand, but said nothing.

 _As long as you’re with me, it should be fine._ Jon took a deep breath, and forced himself to stand up a little straighter.

“Tea would be lovely, thanks,” Jon said. Gerry’s grip turned painfully tight.

“Gerard,” Mary said, and that was when Jon realized his mistake. “Go fetch us some tea, would you?”

When Jon peeked at Gerry from the corner of his eye, his friend was very, very pale. “Mum, I don’t think—”

_“Gerard.”_

Gerry let out a short, frustrated breath. Then he turned around so his front was hidden from his mother’s view, and pulled the opaque bag that held the Leitner from his jacket. “Give this to her,” he ordered urgently under his breath. “Keep her occupied.”

Jon swallowed and nodded, clutching the Leitner to his chest. And then Gerry was gone, leaving him and Mary alone. She was still watching him with her dark, blank eyes. Jon wasn’t sure why, but he got the feeling that she was...waiting for something.

He swallowed, and held out the bag. Mary’s razor-sharp gaze cut to his hands.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Jon licked his lips, trying to wet his mouth. _“Ragged Breath._ A, uh, a Leitner. We, uh. Brought it for you.”

Mary’s eyes lit up with delight, and she took the bag from him without another word. But then to his surprise, she set the bag on the table next to her.

“Um—” Jon stuttered, his gaze flickering from the bag to Mary, back to the bag. “You don’t want to look at it?”

“I’m much more interested in you, Jon,” Mary said, giving him a faint, pale imitation of a smile which did not touch her eyes at all.

Jon swallowed, terror turning his limbs to ice. “O-Oh?”

Mary reached into one of the stacks of books seemingly at random, and pulled out a slim volume. It was bound in leather and had no title or author, and its only distinctive feature was a shiny golden trim. She held it out to him, still smiling that mild, distant smile.

Jon stared down at it mutely.

 _As long as you’re with me, it should be fine._ Gerry was still in the kitchen, making tea.

“I don’t think that I should,” Jon said.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Mary said coaxingly. “Take a look.”

Jon glanced toward the door that Gerry had disappeared through. He thought about calling for help, but then he looked at Mary again, and the idea died immediately.

He took the book.

He could feel Mary’s eyes on him as he held the thing, feeling the unexpected weight of it. He turned it over and over in his hands, taking in the softness of the leather, the shiny silver gilding of the pages.

“Very nice,” he said, handing it back to her.

“Why don’t you open it?” Mary suggested innocently.

Jon glanced toward the door again. Swallowed. His throat had never felt so dry.

He opened the book.

There, in the center of the page, was a spider. Its bulbous black body was spread from corner to corner, dozens of shiny black eyes seeming to stare right into him. It was so detailed that Jon half expected for it to leap out from the page at him. His hands began to shake, and he ice washed over him, down his spine, into his toes.

“Um—” Jon said, unable to tear his eyes away. He desperately tried to let go, to _drop the book,_ but he couldn’t move. “I, um—uh—”

“What do you see?” Mary asked curiously, clinically. Like a scientist examining a butterfly pinned to a corkboard.

The spider’s head twitched. And then it looked up at him, the ink separating from the page with a quiet _squelch._

 _“Jon!”_ someone shouted, and then the book, that terrible spider, was being ripped from his hands. Jon stood there, hands fluttering, his heart beating an arrhythmic staccato. He could hardly hear the words being shouted over his head, the calm, cool responses.

Then there were two hands on his shoulders, and an urgent voice saying, “Jon, look at me. _Look at me.”_

Jon looked up. Two dark eyes were staring back at him, but they were full, achingly full, brimming with anguish and fury. _Gerry,_ he thought, a second before he was engulfed in the scent of cigarettes, incense, and ink.

“Oh come now, Gerard,” Mary said from somewhere over Jon’s head. “I was just curious.”

“He is _fourteen, mum!”_ Gerry shouted, the words thrumming in his chest. “You can’t just— _just—”_

“You know better than to get attached.”

Gerry let out a quiet, wounded sound, like he’d just been stabbed. Then he said, “Come on, Jon. We’re _leaving.”_

Jon nodded into Gerry’s chest, and let his friend bundle him out the door, downstairs, and into the sunlight. There was an awkward moment as Gerry struggled to fit a helmet over Jon’s head without actually letting go of him, but then Jon was wrapping his arms around Gerry’s waist, and they were driving away.

Jon came back to himself in slow, steady increments, the biting wind and Gerry’s real, human warmth cutting through the terrified haze. He blinked back into awareness, and came to the sudden realization that he was pressed as close to Gerry as he could possibly get, clinging. _Like a child,_ he realized, mortified, and scooted backward.

He didn’t expect for Gerry to immediately pull over to the curb and almost fling himself from the moped, throwing his helmet with a sharp _crack_ to the side of the road. Jon sat there, his hands still extended in front of him, feeling like a struck, empty bell.

Jon took a deep breath, then another. He lowered his hands to the still warm seat and pushed off of it, standing on two still-shaky legs. He slowly made his way over to Gerry, who was pacing up and down the street like a caged animal.

Before Jon even got close, Gerry let out a wordless shout and kicked a rock. It skittered down the street, disappearing into the grass and out of sight.

“I can’t _believe_ that she did that,” Gerry seethed, two high spots of color on his cheeks.

Jon said nothing, just shuffled closer.

“I mean she didn’t _say_ that she wouldn’t do anything, but she knows that you’re—” Gerry gestured aimlessly toward Jon. Jon dearly wished to know how he would have finished that sentence. “She should have known better. She should have known.”

“Gerry,” Jon said hoarsely.

Gerry’s footsteps stuttered, but then he kept going, a new, almost hysterical fervor in his eyes. “The next time I see her—”

Finally, Gerry was within Jon’s reach. He stepped in front of Gerry, stopping him in his path, and gently put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“It’s not your fault,” Jon told him.

Gerry breathed in sharply, his gaze wild, mouth half-curled into a furious sneer. But there was something else there if one looked beyond the surface, something wounded, that had been bleeding ever since they’d left Pinhole Books.

“It’s not your fault, Gerry,” Jon repeated.

“Jon,” Gerry said, sounding lost. “Jon, I told you that it would be fine. _I said that you would be safe.”_

“You protected me,” Jon said calmly. “You stopped the book from doing...whatever it was going to do to me. I _am_ safe.”

There was a moment of silence, Gerry wild and angry and _raw_ underneath his grip, Jon still hearing the sound of ink as the spider looked up but determined to ignore it. Then Gerry relaxed, bit by bit, seeming to shrink into his enormous leather jacket. He looked old all of a sudden, and tired, a far cry from his usual self-assurance.

“I’m sorry, Jon.”

Finally, Jon felt as though it was safe to wrap his arms around Gerry’s middle and hug him. He’d never _initiated_ a hug before, but he’d read books and stuff before, and thought that this was what it was supposed to feel like. His friend froze for a second, arms hovering at Jon’s sides, before he deflated one final time, curling over Jon like a blanket.

* * *

Three days later, Jon woke to the sound of a rock hitting his window.

It took him a couple of seconds to realize what it was, and another couple of seconds for him to decide to get out of bed and check. He got to his feet and stumbled over, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, muttering curses under his breath at the _nerve of being awoken at such an awful hour—_

He pushed open his window, but had to dodge backward as another rock flew through the air where he’d just been.

 _Well,_ now _I’m awake,_ Jon thought, and carefully peered outside again.

“Hi,” Gerard Keay said from the grass. He was holding onto a duffle bag, wearing slippers of all things, rather than his usual combat boots.

Jon stared at him for a moment, blinking hard just to make sure that he wasn’t imagining things. Then he gaped and pushed himself over the windowsill, leaning out as far as he was safely able to. _“Gerry?”_

“I ran away,” Gerry said, scratching the back of his head.

Jon gaped even more. “You did _what?”_

“I ran away from home!” Gerry repeated, looking for a second very satisfied and very triumphant. Then he deflated and studied the ground beneath his feet. “But I don’t have a place to stay. Can I sleep here?”

Jon didn’t even have to think about it. “Wait one second.”

He darted downstairs as quickly as he was able, not even bothering to quiet his footsteps. His gran’s hearing had gotten steadily worse over the years, and he was pretty certain it would take an actual explosion to wake her at this point. He almost slid past the front door in his haste, and quickly scrambled to right himself before pulling open the front door.

Gerry stood on the front doorstep in all his dark, goth glory. They studied each other for a moment, Jon marveling over the strangeness of having Gerry in his home at this hour.

“You going to invite me inside?” Gerry asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh!” Jon blushed furiously, and stepped aside. “Please.”

Gerry walked through the door, his piercing gaze flickering around the house. Jon tried to see it as Gerry did—clinically clean, no photographs to speak of, shoes lined neatly against the wall. He felt a brief pang of embarrassment over the complete lack of personality, before shaking the feeling away.

“You’ll have to take off your shoes before you bring them upstairs,” Jon said. “Gran will notice if there’s dirt on the floor.”

“Sure,” Gerry said, removing his slippers without protest.

Gerry studied Jon’s room with the same curiosity he studied the rest of the house, taking in the blank walls, the bookshelves packed full of books. Jon studied Gerry in turn, reflecting that Gerry looked so out-of-place amongst the antique, blandly colored decor it was faintly ridiculous.

“I can sleep on the floor,” Gerry said after a moment, startling Jon back into reality.

“I’ll get you a pillow and some blankets,” Jon promised, and disappeared down the hall before Gerry could protest.

 _Gerry is in my room,_ Jon thought, pausing outside the closet. _Gerry is in my room, sleeping on my floor._ The last time they’d seen each other, Gerry had been fairly shaking apart because his mother had tried to do...something to Jon. Jon felt as though he was encountering the intersection between two separate, distinct realities.

Then he shook his head, and hurried back to his room, arms piled high with blankets and pillows.

Gerry had changed into a t-shirt and some long, flannel bottoms while he was gone, and was now flipping through one of the books from the bookshelf. His hair was tied up into a messy bun, giving Jon a proper look at the hideous dye-job.

“Here you go,” Jon said, depositing the stuff on the floor.

Gerry shut the book and ambled over to the pile, poking through it for a couple of seconds before shaking apart the sheets and the duvet. Jon stared at him for a second, before shaking his head and crawling into his own bed. _Gerry is in my room,_ his brain repeated back to him.

“You ran away?” Jon asked after a moment, because he wouldn’t be Jonathan Sims if he didn’t ask probing, insensitive personal questions.

Gerry paused in the middle of putting together his makeshift bed. Jon listened to the silence, trying to decide whether or not it was the good or the bad kind.

“Yeah,” his friend said. Jon peeked to the floor and watched Gerry pull a soft, downy blanket over his shoulders, until only his eyes and hair were visible. “Mum and I got into a fight.”

Jon wondered if he should push his luck, before remembering that Gerry was literally sleeping on his floor, covered in his blankets. “What about?”

There was a long, tense silence.

“The other day,” Gerry began, then stopped.

Jon took in a quiet breath, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling. The quiet continued to persist, becoming almost a living, breathing thing.

 _The other day._ Jon thought about the sound of ink dribbling from paper, and shiny multitudes of eyes.

“I got into a fight with mum,” Gerry said finally, just when Jon thought that he maybe wasn’t going to answer. “I told her that she couldn’t do that to my friends.”

“Oh,” Jon whispered, swallowing around the lump in his throat. _My friends. Gerry thinks that I am his friend._ It shouldn’t have felt like a revelation—Jon has been thinking the same thing for weeks, after all—but for some reason, it did.

 _My friend._ Jon had to make a new space for those words in his heart. He’d never heard anyone else say them, after all.

“I think that we should destroy Leitners instead,” Gerry said at length.

Jon covered his face with one hand and breathed in a low, shaky breath. Thought about the past couple of days.

“If you destroy Leitners, then your mum will be mad at you.” The words were quiet, tentative. A question that was not quite a question.

“Yes.”

Jon swallowed.

“Okay.”

_Age: 16_

It was lunch break, and Jon was smoking under the boy’s bathroom window.

 _Lunch break,_ Jon thought, breathing out a long, slow stream of smoke, _is a bit of a misnomer._ ‘Break’ implied the absence of stress, a moment of reprieve from an exhausting day of work. But for Jon, lunch had always been an ordeal. During class, students couldn’t bother him; during lunch, they had free reign to do whatever horrible thing that occurred.

Jon’s stomach growled. He ignored it, instead rounding his mouth, trying to puff out a smoke ring.

“Smoking like that will kill you someday,” a voice said.

Jon looked up, and a smile spread, slow and syrupy, across his face. “What are you doing here?”

Gerry stood a few feet in front of him, giving Jon a slow once over that made his insides go all warm and fuzzy. He raised an eyebrow, unimpressed by what he was seeing. “I think the better question is, why aren’t you in class? Aren’t you supposed to be learning, or something?”

“It’s lunch,” Jon said, rubbing out the cigarette in the dirt next to him. “I’m not required to do any learning for the next half hour.”

Gerry took a few steps closer. “Sure about that, delinquent?”

“Very,” If this went any further, Jon would start blushing. “Again. What are you doing here?”

Gerry extended a hand, which Jon took without quite thinking it through. He almost swallowed his tongue when Gerry lifted him to his feet.

“Taking you to lunch, apparently. Or were you planning on subsisting on cigarette smoke?”

Jon bit down on a smile. “I could do.”

Gerry shook his head in exasperation, but lead Jon across the lawn, toward the nearby street. Jon had no idea how Gerry had found him him. He just seemed to have the supernatural ability to know where things were.

As they approached the street, Jon realized that something was off. He frowned, looking up and down the road, but there was no sign of the black moped which had carried them faithfully the past two years.

"Gerry?" he asked.

Gerry turned around, and the grin on his face was almost playful. He took a few steps behind Jon and put his hands on Jon's upper arms, leaning in close to his ear to say, "Over there."

Jon was momentarily so distracted by the proximity that he almost didn't notice the motorcycle sitting under his nose.

But then he saw it, and immediately gaped like an idiot. He looked from Gerry, to the motorcycle, back to Gerry, who was beginning to look like the cat who'd just devoured the canary.

"Gerry?" Jon asked breathlessly. "Is that a _motorcycle?"_

"Yeah," Gerry said, letting go of Jon's arms and stepping forward, patting the leather seat. "Bought it second hand, but it's still in good condition. It just needed a little love."

Jon didn't know much about vehicles, but he could definitely appreciate how much bigger it was than the moped. He stepped forward and ran his hands over the handlebars, marveling at it. When he looked up, Gerry’s mischievous grin had faded into a calm, fond smile.

“We’ll be able to go a lot faster on this,” Jon said.

“Want to give it a go?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

The expression on Gerry’s face then was indescribable. Jon had never had cause to use the words ‘painfully fond’ and ‘inexplicably pleased’ before, but there was no other way to describe the way Gerry’s face lit up.

Jon swung his leg over the motorcycle and wrapped his arms around Gerry’s waist, and pressed his burning cheek against the familiar, _ink-incense-cigarette_ leather jacket.

* * *

_“Jon!”_ Gerry screamed.

Jon blinked fruitlessly, but the film of darkness didn’t dissolve. They’d found the book, but they hadn’t anticipated the monster that had come along with it.

“I’m here, Gerry!” Jon called back, reaching aimlessly out in front of him. His friend sounded so far away, but he had to _try._ “Stay where you are! I’ll come find you!”

 **_“I don’t think so,”_ **said a voice that sounded like the starless night sky and the shape of your shadow as it stretches out from your feet. Jon’s head pounded with every insidious word, and it took everything he had not to sink to the floor and weep.

Then Gerry started _screaming,_ and terror rippled through him like acid.

 _Not him,_ Jon thought. A warm hand on his shoulder, whispered secrets in the night, the smell of incense, ink, and cigarette, all flashed in his mind’s eye. He frantically scrabbled around on the floor for the book he _knew_ was lying there, reaching into his pocket with his other hand.

The screaming dissolved into quiet, pained sobs. Jon gritted his teeth against the monster’s laughter, and scooped up the book. The way it howled as the pages were immolated was probably more satisfying than it should have been, but Jon was beyond caring. It had hurt Gerry. That was good enough.

Jon shook his head, and just like that the darkness was gone from his vision. He let out a low, relieved sigh, before darting forward to where Gerry was collapsed on the floor in a puddle of blood and vomit.

“I’ve got you, Ger,” Jon whispered, grabbing Gerry’s arm and levering him upright. “Come on. I need to get you cleaned up.”

For one terrifying second, Gerry didn’t respond, just let out a low, ragged moan. Jon was just thinking about calling an ambulance, to hell with the consequences, when Gerry started actively attempting to get to his feet.

“I c’n walk,” he muttered, not sounding very convincing. “I need t’...drive. The motorcycle.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jon told him, draping Gerry’s arm over his shoulders with a wince. His friend was _heavy._ _“I’m_ driving the motorcycle.”

Gerry let out a noise that could only be described as a whine, and Jon laughed despite himself. He wished he had a hand free, so he could brush Gerry’s long bangs away from his face.

“You can’t drive,” Gerry slurred.

“You taught me, remember?” Jon reminded him gently as they staggered out of the building together. Gerry kept forgetting how to walk, his feet going one way or the other. _We probably look like two drunkards,_ Jon thought hysterically. “In case something like this happened. I fought you over it.”

“Oh,” the words were faint, like they were coming from a great distance. “I’d never seen you so...worked up before.”

Jon snorted at that. He _had_ been pretty insistent.

“You were beautiful,” Gerry added, the words easy and flippant, like he was commenting on the weather. Like those words didn’t make Jon’s head spin, make him pause in the middle of their stuttered, drunken stumbling. “S’why I said yes.”

“Ah,” Jon whispered, staring straight ahead.

They stumbled forward again, because Jon was English to his core, and if he let silly things like _feelings_ get to him then the world would probably end. But those words rang around in his head, even as he stuffed the helmet on Gerry’s head, even as he clasped Gerry’s hands over his stomach and edged the motorcycle out onto the street.

_You were beautiful._

Jon’s blush deepened when Gerry let out a quiet, satisfied noise and snuggled against his back, as pliant and cuddly as he could only be when he was drunk or concussed out of his mind.

_Jesus._

* * *

They didn’t talk about it for almost four weeks. In fact, Jon didn’t even think that Gerry _remembered_ it.

Jon hoped that Gerry remembered it. He also hoped that he didn’t.

It’s just—he was _scared._ He was scared that Gerry would look at him, and his face would twist up with embarrassment, and he’d go, _no, I’m sorry, I meant someone else._ Or even worse, he’d laugh at him, teasing him for believing the ramblings of a drunken man.

_You were beautiful._

And what did it mean if Gerry _did_ mean it? It wasn’t like Jon had never thought about what it would be like to be in a—a _relationship_ with Gerry. Gerry was clever, and he’d never treated Jon like an idiot, and more than that he was _good._ Maybe not nice, but he was good to Jon.

Jon thought that he would very much like to be in a relationship with Gerry.

But Jon had become increasingly aware over the past few years of the fact that he was missing something very fundamental. Whereas most boys his age talked about their... _attractions,_ whispered about magazines and made lewd jokes that everyone seemed to understand, Jon just...didn’t. He of course could appreciate that some people were good-looking, but it was more like he was looking at a painting and recognizing that it was a work of art. He certainly didn’t want to do anything... _untoward_ with that work of art.

It was fine. Or it had been fine, except that Gerry had called him beautiful four weeks ago, and now Jon had to _think_ about it. If they were dating, Gerry would probably expect...things. Things that Jon didn’t know whether or not he was capable of giving him.

It was fine. Jon gritted his teeth, and told himself that it _would_ be fine, whether he liked it or not.

* * *

Gerry was in Jon’s room again.

Things were...good. Normal. Jon was doing an admirable job of keeping things from getting awkward, while Gerry obliviously sprawled on his makeshift bed, flipping through one of Jon’s old notebooks, completely missing all of Jon’s efforts to keep things from getting awkward. It was difficult, though, since he couldn't stop _thinking_ about _you were beautiful,_ and how kissable the corner of Gerry's mouth looked.

 _Ungrateful,_ Jon thought sourly.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Gerry closed the notebook with a snap and got to his feet.

“Jon,” Gerry said casually, rolling over and beginning to rummage through his bag. “Would you be willing to do me a favor?”

Jon immediately stopped sulking. "What do you need?"

"You're always complaining about how awful my dye job is," he said, emerging from his duffle bag with a box. "Give me a hand?"

Jon swallowed. Dying meant being in close proximity with one another, meant Jon running his fingers over Gerry’s long, black hair.

“Sure,” he said, and got to his feet.

Jon went to go and get some newspapers from downstairs, because if they made a mess in the bathroom, then his gran would be livid. Not that she wouldn’t be livid about the fact that a strange teenager had been sleeping in Jon’s room on and off for the last three years without her knowing, but she would be _especially_ mad if they made a mess.

He ordered an amused Gerry to sit on the edge of the tub, carefully positioning him over a layer of newspapers. Gerry had already been in the closet, and had an old, faded towel draped over his shoulders, half of his hair piled on top of his head. Jon scanned the back of the box carefully, making sure that he understood the directions properly.

“This doesn’t look so hard,” Jon commented, before shaking the box’s contents onto the counter. “How do you keep messing it up that badly?”

“You try doing it on your own and tell me how easy it is,” Gerry responded.

Jon snorted, put on the gloves, and carefully squeezed the ingredients into a shallow soap dish he’d found underneath the sink. He mixed them for a few seconds longer than was probably necessary, but he was _not_ letting Gerry out of this bathroom with another crappy dye job.

Then he turned to look at Gerry, and froze.

Gerry sat on the edge of the tub, his long, black hair loose around his shoulders. He’d been wearing black eyeliner today, and he hadn’t washed it off yet, so the line was slightly smudged. His eyes were dark, and there was no hint of hesitance or wariness in his gaze. He was trusting, and Jon was the only one in the whole world who knew how important that was.

They were staring at each other from across this stupid, cramped bathroom, and Jon had never understood what it meant before to go breathless.

 _You were beautiful,_ Jon thought, swallowing. 

He scooped up a bit of the mixture and stepped closer. Gerry closed his eyes and lowered his head to give Jon better access as he began to work the dye through Gerry's long black hair, starting from the tips and working his way upward.

The whole process took around ten minutes, and by the end Jon's hands were sweaty from the gloves. Gerry's head was thoroughly black, though. Jon hoped that the finished project would look better than Gerry's had in the past.

He shifted backward, but was halted by a gentle grip on his wrist.

"Jon," Gerry said in that low, serious way of his. “I am going to kiss you now.”

Jon’s heart leaped into his throat. “Okay.”

Gerry gently tugged him down, gaze flickering from Jon’s eyes to his mouth and back again, as though checking to make sure it was okay. Jon wanted to tell him _yes, yes, kiss me. It’s fine. It’s fine._

The first time Gerry and Jon kissed it was dry, chaste. Gerry was so gentle, so careful, as though he was kissing a butterfly’s wings, as though Jon was something precious. After a couple of seconds he pulled back, grazing his fingers over the side of Jon’s face, dark gaze still searching.

Jon remembered only just in time that he was still wearing the stupid, dye-covered gloves. He ripped them from his fingers and tossed them into the trash before crowding into Gerry’s space, taking his face between his hands. Jon approached kissing the same way he approached everything else in life—enthusiastically determined to discover all there was to know about it. Gerry let out a pleased sound from the back of his throat, threading his fingers through Jon’s cropped hair, not seeming at all deterred by Jon’s clumsiness.

Jon left one last, indulgent, lingering kiss at the corner of Gerry's mouth before they broke apart, staring at each other.

“Gerry,” Jon breathed.

“Jon,” Gerry responded, his cheeks flushed with color. “I—I like you. A lot. Is that...”

Jon opened his mouth instinctively to say _yes, of course that's fine, kiss me whenever, I like you too—_ but then a cold pit yawned in his stomach, draining all the hazy, comfortable warmth that had suffused his whole body.

 _You should talk to him about it,_ Jon thought.

Instead he forced a smile on his face, and leaned over to kiss Gerry again.

_Age: 18_

Jon and Gerry spilled onto the floor next to Jon’s bed. Jon was hiccuping, choking on his laughter, while Gerry was chuckling, a deep, throaty sound that rumbled through the room like thunder.

“Did you see that woman’s _face?”_ Gerry said between breaths.

Jon covered his face with one hand, trying to stifle himself before Gerry started teasing him about his _cute little hiccups._ “I thought she was going to—to try and go after you with the umbrella.”

 _“Delinquent!”_ Gerry shouted, and then dissolved into hysterics.

“To be fair,” Jon said, rolling over and draping himself over Gerry’s chest. Gerry stared back at him, one eyebrow quirked. “I _am_ wearing a fussy little sweater vest, and _you_ have eyeliner on.”

Gerry chortled at that, before wrapping his arms over Jon’s shoulders and dragging him down for a kiss. Jon smiled into it, and only stopped when their teeth clacked together uncomfortably. They separated after a few breathless moments, Jon’s higher brain functions all but shot, half-drunk on the taste of Gerry’s mouth.

Gerry smiled at him, carefully tucking his hair behind one ear. “I like seeing you like this,” he confided.

“Like what?” Jon asked muzzily.

Gerry only laughed at that. Then he cupped the back of Jon’s head and, without warning, flipped him onto his back so that their positions were reversed. Jon let out a shocked gasp, his hands trapped against Gerry’s chest.

“I like seeing you lose control,” Gerry said between trailing a line of kisses down Jon’s neck.

“G-Gerry,” Jon gasped out, his hand reaching out and wrapping around Gerry’s wrist, the warm feeling fizzling into cold fear. “Stop.”

Gerry stopped immediately, pulling back and away. There was a small, worried frown on his face, which only deepened when he saw the look on Jon’s face. “Jon?”

“Give me a second,” Jon said, pulling back and away, pushing his hair away from his face with shaking hands.

Gerry went obediently quiet, sitting back on his haunches, letting Jon scoot out from under him and curl against the side of the bed. He took a few slow, calming breaths, raking his hand through his hair, before peering up at Gerry. Gerry stared back at him, and the look on his face left Jon breathless, but not in a good way. It was so distraught, so guilty, that Jon instinctively reached out to him.

Gerry let out a low, shaky sigh, before crawling over and curling into Jon’s embrace.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispered, tucking his nose into Gerry’s shoulder. He sometimes got frustrated at the fact that he was much shorter than Gerry was, but at times like this, he was relieved. He liked it when Gerry draped himself over Jon, blocking him off from the rest of the world.

“Don’t apologize,” Gerry said immediately.

“No, Gerry,” Jon scrubbed his hand over his face, frustrated with himself. “I need to—talk to you about something, I should’ve said something earlier.”

Gerry was quiet for a second, but he didn’t immediately push Jon away, which was encouraging.

Jon whispered, “I, uh. I don’t think that I like, um. Sex.”

Gerry didn’t respond.

“It’s nothing personal, Gerry,” he said. “I swear to you, I—I really, really like you. I do, I’ve just—I’ve never _wanted_ to have sex with anyone, and I—” he choked on a breath, ashamed of his tears, ashamed of _himself,_ at the admission that poured like poison from his throat, “—I don’t know if there’s something _wrong_ with me—”

“Jon,” Gerry said urgently, and then there was an insistent touch on Jon’s chin. He looked up, blinking away the wetness in his eyes, but it was so blurry that he couldn’t see Gerry’s face. “Listen. First of all, there is nothing _wrong_ with you. Get that shit out of your head, _right now.”_

Jon choked on a sob. Gerry’s face crumpled a little, but then smoothed out again. “Second, I love you, and I'm going to continue loving you regardless of whether or not we have sex. Understand?"

That shocked Jon into silence. He stared at Gerry, lips parted. Gerry stared back, eyes wide, flushed to the tips of his ears, but defiant, always defiant.

"Understand?" Gerry repeated.

"Y-Yeah," Jon said, baffled at how this turned into a confession. _Love._ It was a big word.

Gerry noded, businesslike, and then rested his head against Jon's. Jon wasn't fooled, though. He could feel Gerry's heart hammering away.

Jon thought about that for a moment, then another. Then he turned and pressed a shy kiss against Gerry's cheek. "I, uh. I love you, too."

Gerry breathed in sharply before sighing, a big whoosh of air that sounded like it hurt. "You don't have to say it just because I did," he grumbled into Jon's hair.

"I mean it," Jon decided, feeling more sure of it by the second. "I love you, too."

And then Gerry turned and kissed him fiercely, and Jon wasn’t sure if the salt on his lips were from his tears, or Gerry’s.

_Age: 28_

“Jon?”

Jon looked up from the paperwork on his desk, frowning at Sasha, one of the research assistants. She’d proven to be especially competent at her job, far more so than Tim or Martin, which is why he schooled his expression into some semblance of politeness before saying, “Yes?”

“Uh,” Sasha hesitated, tapping her fingers against the door. “There’s someone here to see you?”

“I’m busy,” Jon said dismissively, losing interest. “Tell them to make an appointment.”

It took him a couple of seconds to realize that Sasha was still standing there, still staring at him, chewing on her lip. He looked up, frowning. “Something the matter?”

“He said that you would say that,” Sasha said, “And to tell you that his name was Gerard Keay, and he didn’t need an appoint—oh!”

Jon had leapt out of his seat the second her mouth closed over the word _Keay,_ and was brushing by her before she could even finish her sentence. He strode down the hallway, and his face must have been a sight, because employees were jumping out of his way, shooting him nervous, terrified looks as he passed.

Gerard Keay stood a little to the side of the front desk, looking the very image of an insouciant youth. He was wearing a dark red bandana over his shaved head, the same one he’d been wearing since the combination of surgery and chemo had taken his long, poorly dyed hair from him. He was also wearing his beaten, black leather trenchcoat, and black combat boots. There was a brown, stained paper bag in one hand. The lady at the front desk was giving him a wary side eye, as though she expected him to climb over the desk and cause an altercation at any moment.

“Gerry,” Jon said, feeling a smile spread across his face. “What’ve you got for me?”

“Donuts,” Gerry said, grinning back. They didn’t hug, but Jon felt the warmth of his partner all the way to his toes.

“Oh, excellent,” Jon said, making grabby hands toward the bag. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

Gerry leaned forward as he handed the bag over and said in an undertone, “I hope you like me for quite a bit more than that.”

“Oh, stop,” Jon said fondly.

“But seriously,” Gerry continued, still in an undertone. “I’ve managed to track down Gertrude’s storage unit. Have you found a key anywhere?”

“Not yet,” Jon murmured back, ducking his head and tucking a curl behind his ear, as though embarrassed. “I’ll let you know if anything else happens when I get home. I doubt it, though. It’s been dull.”

“Want me to sit on your desk and look intimidating?” Gerry asked innocently. “I’m told that I’m very good at that.”

Jon briefly entertained the idea of putting his partner on his desk like a particularly scowly paperweight, and shook his head. “No, it’s fine. Go home. I know you’re probably tired.”

Gerry glanced over at the secretary, before shrugging and planting a kiss on Jon’s cheek. Jon tolerated the affection for a few more seconds before waving him away with a blush. He wasn’t interested in fueling the gossip mills any more than they already have; he could already feel several pairs of eyes boring into the back of his skull.

“Love you,” Gerry whispered, before disappearing out the door.

Jon stared after him for a moment, a small smile playing across his lips, before shaking his head and heading back inside.

He had work to do, after all.


End file.
